The Horde framework evolved from the IMP (Internet Messaging Project) webmail that Chuck Hagenbuch published on Freshmeat in 1998.[3] A constant stream of feature requests not all fitting for a webmail application led to the development of a more generic web application backbone: the Horde framework. The first announcement on Freshmeat was version 1.3.3 at the beginning of 2001.[4] The release of Horde 2.0 and IMP 3.0 was the first one with two truly separate components.[5]

Horde as a generic web application framework primarily supported the webmail as well as a set of groupware applications by the time Horde 3.0 was released in 2004.[6] The modular and flexible nature of the software allowed many service providers and packagers to integrate the software into their portfolio. Horde is the software used for webmail offered by SAPO[7] which serves several million users.[8] The software has been packaged for all major Linux distributions[9][10][11] and is available as a component in hosting tools such as Plesk[12] or cPanel.[13]

With the release of Horde 4.0 in 2011[14] the framework saw significant architectural changes, a split into nearly a hundred separate PEAR packages[15] and support for smartphones.

While preparing the last Horde 3 maintenance release in February 2012 the Horde developers discovered that hackers breached the security of the Horde FTP server and managed to place a backdoor into three of the distributed packages.[16] The attack had taken place in November the year before so that the modified packages were distributed over three months. One of the tainted packages was picked up by the unstable branches of Debian and Ubuntu and were fixed immediately after the successful attack was disclosed.[17] The attackers did not modify the newer Horde 4 sources.